Okay, here I go. The kill-team mission we played was assassination. The two teams were Space Marine veterans and Tau commandos verses an army of Kroot.

Kill team match was set circa 265 points each side, so it was a bit larger than your average mission. We decided that we would play cooperatively, and we set a small scenario based around a chaos-tainted kroot compound. The leader, a kroot master shaper, was armed with a witchblade and had three wounds. On top of that, he was also attached to a squad instead of being a solo unit like the majority of the army.

The Kill Team was composed of two squads. My squad was composed of four marines from my custom Sternguard veteran squad, one armed with a heavy bolter and the sergeant was armed with a powerfist and a combi-flamer. The two others carried combi-flamers. My Tau allies, controlled by my friend, were composed of three Stealthsuits and a shield-drone, all held in reserve.

My squad started quite a distance away, so there was a bit of footslogging. After a short while, the squad was spotted by a Kroot sentry, who opened fire, but missed. The squad returned fire, killing him. After this, the squad split into pairs, with the sergeant and the heavy bolter marine running left, while the remaining two marines moved behind a box.
After the first shots, roughly four kroot converged on the two pairs. A hail of rifle fire cut down the heavy bolter marine before he could bring his weapon to bear. Unsupported by their Tau allies, the remaining three marines opened fire on the kroot, clearing out five of them. The marines were able to hide themselves behind cover during the brief ceasefire, but the lone sergeant was spotted by a kroot sentry. A much larger force of upwards of ten kroot then assembled and directed themselves towards the marines.
At this moment, the Tau arrived from reserve. They cut down a few advancing kroot before they moved back into cover.
Unfortunately for the two marines, eight kroot charged towards them. Breaking from cover after shooting two kroot trying to flank them, the two marines ignited the group with their combi-flamers. The sergeant shot a surviving kroot with his bolter. Roughly six kroot died to the combined inferno, and a single kroot stood in the way of the sergeant. Rushing forward, he assaulted and utterly annihilated the kroot, scoring two out of three hits with his powerfist while resisting all of the melee swings from his adversary. There were a few jokes about closed-casket funerals thrown around at this time.
Here's where things get ugly.
The stealthsuits, who had utilized the firefight as a distraction, were able to advance towards the enemy leader and his squad who were located behind a structure. A short firefight ensued, leaving three kroot dead from burst-cannon fire. The Tau shield-drone was killed.
My trio of marines advanced forward. Hiding behind a flipped Vindicator, they engaged a high-density kroot mob that had become alert to their presence. The stealthsuits, which had moved away from the kroot commander and his squad because of their close proximity assisted the marines, scythed down several of the carnivores. The remaining enemy force of roughly twelve foes, amplified by the presence of their leader surged forward, and easily overpowered a single stealthsuit as they changed position. The stealthsuits shifted to the right of the Vindicator cover, while the kroot sought to overpower the marines hiding behind it by flanking from the left. As the kroot rounded around the cover, they ran, which distanced their units, making the flamethrower shot from my sergeant's combi-flamer utterly impractical. Rather than to kill him off, I pulled back the squad towards my tau allies to the north-right. A bad round of shooting plus the retreat left the kroot army unscathed.
As the kroot mob advanced, they were easily able to catch up to two of my marines who were out in the open to the right of the Vindicator hull. The witchblade from the kroot commander downed one of the marines. My sergeant rounded a corner to ambush the kroot with his flamer, and the remaining Tau and other marine opened fire, thinning the horde down. The enemy force dwindled to a single kroot alongside the unscathed kroot Master Shaper, who had three wounds. The sergeant fired his flamer, killing the last remaining kroot lackey and wounding the kroot Shaper. The remaining marine who was within assaulting range of the Shaper, rapid-fire his bolter, scoring a wound before he was knocked out of the fight by the Shaper's Witchblade. The Tau and the sergeant engaged the Kroot Master Shaper, and finally brought him down under a hail of fire.

After the battle, we brought the two marines who had been wounded by the Shaper back to life, along with one of the Stealthsuits. We then quickly invented rules on how to perform a line of high-fives between the Sternguard squad and the Stealthsuit team. In the movement phase, the three Tau stealthsuits lined up, and the three marines approached from the left. During the assault phase, the marines passed down the line and rolled to see if they gave their Tau compatriot a successful high-five. The two regular marines would high-five on a 3+, whereas the power-fist armed sergeant would hit on a 2+. All three rolls indicated that they did, and the Tau player rolled to see if the three stealthsuits successfully received the high-fives on a 3+ roll. In a string of luck, all three rolls were successful, and a few jokes were cracked at unlikely event, especially given the anti-social behavior typically exerted by both Tau and Astartes in the fluff.

Whoo, just spent the last 20 minutes recapping Warhammer 40k lore to a friend over steam chat. And while I was looking up Leman Russ I found this quote.

"Do not underestimate the Squats. They survived for millennia cut off from the Imperium and assailed from all sides. Their determination and resilience is an example to all." (Meditations on Imperial Command, Book XVI)4

Even Leman Russ knows the squats were real! Games Workshop can;t remove them from history, no matter how hard they try.

Is there a way to make it so that in DoWII I play as Tarkus and my friend plays the commander?

Try the squad selection screen. If it isn't unlocked right away you might have to wait until you get Thaddeus.

Also I got a draw today, got paired against Blood Angels.

We were playing Objective Control, and I got to deploy and go first. There were 4 objectives; one at the back of my side by a ruin, one in a crater near the middle, one on a tower at the back of his side, and one in a crater on his side.

I held one Crusader squad with Bolters on the nearest objective at game start, I put another in a Rhino on the far left with the EC and the Marshall took control of the melee squad. The Terminus was on a hill by the ruin occupied by the Ranged Squad,so there was very little on the table it couldn't hit. He had Commander Dante and a squad of Sanguinary Guard, 5 Death Company and Astorath, and a Librarian Furioso in reserve, and he had a Razorback, a Tactical Squad, and a Terminator squad deployed on the left and right sides of the table.

I went first and I started by stunning the Razorback with the Terminus, then letting the Dreadnought finish it off with its Assault Cannon. I moved the Melee Squad into the middle crater to capture it, and I moved the Rhino up a bit. In his turn he deep striked Dante's squad into range of 3/4 of my army, and he got his Dreadnought to land next to it. He killed one Neophyte.

I retaliated by shooting with 12 Bolt Pistols, 2 Storm Bolters , the whole squad occupying my ruin, and the Dreadnought. I killed every one of them, except for Dante. I had deepstriked my CC Terminators in and he charged them, only killing one. "Uh oh." He got hit with 15 PW wounds. He died. The Terminus meanwhile blew up the Furioso, wiping out the only reliable AT weapon in his army. The only other units with a weapon capable of damaging my vehicles were the Terminator with Assault Cannon and his 2 Missile Launchers camping in his ruin. In the next turn he deep striked his Death Company into the exact same spot where the Sanguinary Guard got slaughtered. I managed to kill 3 men, which wasn't enough as I soon found out. His Death Company charged my Terminators and wiped them out, then consolidated and attacked my ruin squad. They got annihilated too.

Astorath and 2 Death Company wiped out 6 Terminators and 10 Crusaders in a turn. Ouch. Meanwhile on the far left of the board my Rhino Squad got stalled and had to disembark to attack the Termie squad I hadn't dealt with yet. When they charged the Emperors Champion killed 2 of his Termies before they even struck. Another two died to the PF Sergeant and one more got killed by a Crusader with a Bolter.

By the end I controlled just the mid point, and he controlled the ruins on his side. It was a draw, but I got the following killcount:

Ive got a whole week of matches to look forward to, starting with a 600pt per person Planet Strike game on Monday, a 600pt Tourney on Friday and my usual 1750pt match on Saturday. My christ, Warhammer is fun when you've got a place to try out your stuff after 3 years of collecting.

Just got Blood Reaver, which follows the Night Lords. Would anyone recommend other books? I also saw Victories of the Space Marines, The Word Bearers and Space Wolves Omnibus, and the Ciaphas Cain and Horus Heresy series.

Just got Blood Reaver, which follows the Night Lords. Would anyone recommend other books? I also saw Victories of the Space Marines, The Word Bearers and Space Wolves Omnibus, and the Ciaphas Cain and Horus Heresy series.